You can see WHO here. The test is not accurate about looks as I got nothing on the guy’s America’s Most Wanted vibe. Strangely, his paintings are somewhat similar to this modern master who I have championed.

I’m goin’ to bed, send me your personality test results, I am going to write about going to galleries earlier this week and what I saw tomorrow, but I will leave you with THIS teaser: Which artist who showed at my gallery (Coagula Gallery) one year ago is now exhibiting at Ace Gallery** on Wilshire Boulevard? Let’s just say, I walked in the room and was like “Oh shit!”

**for those of you not in the “art world know” going from Coagula to Ace is about the biggest bottom-to-top leap a Los Angeles artist – or any artist – could ever hope to make in one year, let alone one decade.

Anyway, taking off the cookies from your hard drive can be a big mess, so I am working on a writeup of Bergamot and other galleries but that may have to wait until tomorrow. In the meantime, take this quiz and see if you are at all like me – I wish you luck in being nothing like the man wired on Diet Coke at 3 a.m. screaming at the computer when things are not going his way……..

Wrote a catalog essay for a friend all day and all night – have been working on it for a while. It is going to be for a show in Italy and i get to see my writing translated into Italian. I wonder how sexy I sound.

Catalog essays are the apple to the art critic’s Adam. They are the thing that eventually corrupts the writer. The trick is to hire a critic to write about your work – then the implication is that since you have paid them, they write about you for free somewhere else. If the L.A. Weekly prohibited critic Peter Frank from mentioning artists who have hired him, he would pick a radically different group of artists then those he regularly mentions. Add to that artists with hiring ability at art schools or those with connections to grants or foundations, and, well, you see where this is going.

So I bowed out of the catalog game long ago. My standard line is that I will only write about an artist for free in my own magazine or when hired by an independent third party for a publication. That way, when you read my name attached to an essay, you know it is something that I believe, someone I am behind, not someone who bought me.

I had to bend the rule for my very dear friend Shirley Cannon. Look, she got a big solo show in Italy, I have dug her work for years – don’t even ask what her gallery paid Peter Frank to write a catalog essay (it is obscene enough to put him back on my shit list) a few years back. I realized when she called and asked if i was interested that being all noble and supposedly higher and mightier than anyone had only meant that I wrote about fewer artists, hadn’t changed a goddamn thing in the whole corrupt system and was in a way, punishing people who wanted me to write about their art.

So I told her for her, 500 words for 200 bucks. She agreed. So I guess I have established my going rate – at least for friends that I knew back in the late ’80s.

But to write about someone’s art positively, I have to like it. So many critics write rambling essays of description and digression and never offer an opinion or take a stance. So there again, I have liked Shirly’s art for 14 years, it was time to do something about it. I guarantee that the money will be foolishly spent in Las Vegas.

I emailed her 488 words an hour or so ago. Weird though, the funniest thing is – nobody really reads what critics have to say………

My post from May 26 was about a disgruntled ex-employee of Julian Schnabel’s.

Well, the New York Post told the other side of the story recently, so I wanted to get both sides in here. The pertinent points made:

…friends of Schnabel call Gomez an ingrate and a parasite, and say he was frustrated because he started making his own paintings but couldn’t get a gallery show. “Julian did everything to help him, but he turned on Julian,” said one insider. “Lazaro was totally disloyal. Why should Julian support a guy who’s stabbing him in the back?”

Here at Coagula, we report, you decide.

This weekend I was at the foot of Mount Gleason in my old stomping grounds of Sunland, CA, which is in the absolute hinterlands of L.A. County and City – and lo and behold, among the white trash trailer parks and the mullets and the meth labs and the Coco’s restaurant and the Sizzler, there were MOCA Warhol Banners.

When the city of L.A. puts culture in Sunland, they are really pushing this thing. I have been trying to write a review of the show. It starts to get too sprawling. I will post it here eventually.

Anyway, poolside in Sunland for Memorial Day was nice. Actually, I didn’t even know it was a holiday – I even went and checked my mail today.

Deep River Gallery, which was discussed at length in the Coagula Issue #56 interview with its founder artist Daniel J. Martinez, is closing. Saturday night there was a reception for the space’s final show. It was a good run. The landlord is apparently jacking the rent up. One good civil uprising a year or two from now and the whole building will be abandoned. Oh, Glenn Kaino and Tracey Schiffman also ran Deep River, so now they probably will have more money to party with instead of paying Deep River’s rent.

At POST Gallery (awesome website) the crowd was thin. Hadn’t seen Lonnie Gans in a few years. She was there, lots of energy, very sharp. The show there is the best I have seen in quite some time. The artists were Joe Amrhein and Jamie Scholnick. Joe is from New York. Jamie is from, well, I don’t know where she is from, but she is definitely going somewhere. Don’t ever write off POST’s gallery dealer Habib Kheradyar, he has a good eye and this show is definitely worth a look.

So I am normally a good judge of character, and if I talk shit about someone, you can bet they deserve it, but tonight I was talking to an artist who was heretofore considered Queen Shrew the Coniving. But it turns out, she was in physical pain for like ten years and recently had major bone surgery, like a baseball player on the disabled list. Well, anyway, since this surgery, I have noticed her vibe is totally different. She was walking around in pain and was a total pain – and now she is pain-free and totally chill, actually pleasant to talk to.

And goddamnit these petty ego interpersonal snippy tiffs take up so much energy. I thought I was a people person. Now I’m scratching my head. And don’t even get me started on the Brewery Art Colony where I live. Talk about a battle of the semi-talented egos. Ah, the life of a hermit awaits, caffeinated at 4:45 a.m., there has got to be a Smiths’ song about this …..

To The Public:, April 12, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from New York United States
To the public:

My name is L?zaro Gómez Carriles. I am the heir to Reinaldo Arenas’ Estate.

I once regarded Julian Charles Schnabel with the utmost respect for having depicted cinematically, in the film, Before Night Falls, Reinaldo Arenas’ literary screams of terror committed against the Cuban people. The whole world stood up crying, and applauded Julian’s heroism: his contribution to Cuba’s fight for freedom. Now, I am morally stricken with grief, but I am responsible to you, as well as my fellow Cubans still living in terror, to state the truth: Julian Charles Schnabel is a fraud!

And I stand by my words firmly, as we know Reinaldo has always done in moments like this, despite of the consequences that, undiscerningly, Julian Schnabel is attempting against my person. Apparently, Schnabel has misinterpreted the integrity of my long time friend, Reinaldo.

I have wrote two poems, Soneto Para Una Dama Opulenta, and Como Picasso, for my book of poetry, entitled, Intuición Campesina, and these poems, one dedicated to Julian Schnabel, and the other to Olatz Schnabel, along with my paintings, and a documentary made about my work, entitled, Membranofonismo, Birth of a Movement, has infuriated Julian so: he has fired me, canceled my family’s health insurance, and has refused to speak to me, and the only way I can have any further communication with Julian Schnabel, is through his lawyers. And now, I have very few months left to enjoy the peace of my home, because he has generously extended me four months, to vacate the domicile where I now reside, provided that I never write anything about him again. I am about to lose everything I ever owned, again! But I am tired of having to start over, and over, every time my poetry angers someone.

Among all the people in the world, Julian is the last person I could think of, being the recipient of the “Human Spirit Award”, that would want me to spend the rest of my life regretting, that I used my privilege to write a poem. But he gave me so much inspiration, that I could not ignore such gifts.

Please Julian, I am begging you: you don’t have to like my poems; you don’t have to like my paintings, but do not make me regret my bad taste in art. Make me regret that I have stated that you are a fraud.

The Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills had a show of collaborative paintings between Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat.

First the crowd, a huge turnout, lots of celebrities and beautiful people, art world glitterati were there.

Second, the art, uh, lot of Basquiat, only a little Warhol, and it seems Basquiat was trying to reign it in when only balls-out would do. One very very long painting that has any Warhol references completely painted over was the best of show. More like a bunch of blown-up sketchpad afterthoughts. But at some point you cannot argue with star wattage. Gagosian’s got it and nobody else in this town does.

A few art world pricebreakers whispered in my ear that none of these pieces could crack 300 grand, and that the “sucker” museums out on “the fringes” were the only possible takers, aside from “any one of a number of those casual noveau-riche Hollywood egos that Larry practically built this gallery to seduce.”

Tim Hunt from the Warhol Foundation in New York, was there, pleasant as ever. tim assured me that the MOCA hanging of the Warhol show was hands down superior to the German and British venues for this retrospective. He introduced me to Earl McGrath, who is reopening his Robertson Boulevard gallery. Artforum editor Knight Landsman was there, but he kept mispronouncing my name as “Max,” and i wasn’t about to correct the poor old fella, so i just left him be to dotter about the Hollywood glitz. Gotta let the New Yorkers swim in the glamor while they are out here.

Larry Gagosian worked the room. He is getting sorta puffy. Maybe he is on some weird chinese herbs for something and the face bloat is a side effect. Nothing awful, just a little pudgier than two months ago at his Schnabel opening.

After the opening, it was hell to get out of the Beverly Hills city parking structure. A hundred cars leaving at once through one turnstile. There were Jags and Rolls Royces all backed up, sorta funny, really, a rolls, then a Hyundai, then a Bentley, a Jaguar, a Toyota Corolla. Robert Shapazian stood by one carload of old biddies for almost an hour working them. He is the Gagosian gallery’s master salesman, hope he was on the clock, because it was a long-ass wait getting out of the parking structure!

Synopsis: The press feedbag was a plate of cookies and some coffee. It was the biggest press preview MOCA has ever had, at least since i have been going, and I was crashing these things when they were tequila-fueled orgies in the late ’80s. No free catalogs. A thick-ass press packet had lots of info on the tourism angle that MOCA and the city are partnering up for. One press release was headlined: “Book a Room and Get VIP Tickets to the Andy Warhol exhibit at MOCA.” Then there is the Marylin Monroe tie-in. Warhol painted Marylin and so we get a press release “Marilyn Monroe’s L.A.” She was born at County General, and there are 11 other points of interest, right up to her crypt. Then the inevitable release about “Mayor Hahn Announces opening of Andy Warhol Retrospective at MOCA.”

Zzzzzzzzzz …… Oh, and I haven’t even gotten to the boring stuff.

Teevee crews set up for the press conference. Plenty of art press people all a-bubbly to be in an actual press conference. I was all a-bubbly to be standing two feet away from Ms. Mary Leigh Cherry (who kept steering the subject of my chat-ups back to her significant other, Tony). Anyway, the biggies got up and spoke in front of a gigantic Warhol portrait of Mao.

Moca Director, Jeremy Strick
He spoke about the show politely. He said Eli Broad brought up the possibility of hosting the show last Summer over lunch. He didn’t say whether Broad ordered the McRib or the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. At least we find out that prior to September 11, Strick wanted to boost museum attendance. He used phrases like “Marketing Alliance” and “A show that focuses on quality” but it was mostly blah blah blah, Moca this, Moca that, Moca cured cancer, etcetera.

Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn
First off, he is fatter in person than he looks on television. Double chin and all. And it gave me insight into George W. Bush, because the minute the guy opened his mouth, fuck it, he sounded like a moron. Just because one can speak extemporaneously does not mean one should. So you can imagine the Washington Press Corps just going “Oh shit, he’s such a twit,” when in reality Bush is probably an average Joe. Hahn sounded like a pompous idiot. His two insights on Andy Warhol: Hahn first knew there was an Andy Warhol as a lad of 12 or 13 (equating the artist’s greatness with Hahn’s knowledge of his existence). The second insight, and I swear this is a fucking direct quote, “Warhol’s art allows us to find the child in all of us.” Huh? You know, it is hard to even dignify such utter lunacy with a comment. It is obvious that he pulled that comment out of the stock speech given at elementary schools when surrounded by kids’ finger paintings. What a disrespectful, uneducated, arrogant asshole.

Eli Broad
Is this the only guy who cares about art in Los Angeles? While the television crews are breaking down, he is talking about making art accessible to the public, that Warhol is the artist to do it with, that MOCA needs to serve the people of Los Angeles, a completely non-elitist, caring, forthright and frank little speech. He was blunt that the Warhol show would help MOCA serve a larger public and that as far as that public goes, “We need ‘em here at MOCA.” Perhaps this is a complete end to the Koshalek era of allowing curator Anne Goldstein’s husband to be curated into every abysmal show, of allowing artless bullshit shows of whoever is the trendy tenure track flavor of the month to be given a mid-career retrospective, of allowing Regen Projects and L.A. Louver Galley carte blanche for their artists.

Some Kraut
The guy who curated the show in its original European venue. Snooze fucking fest, the place emptied out pretty quick. The crowd was like, “If we pay attention, you’re just gonna start ordering us around.” I wanted to go up to the microphone and ask him to shout “Colonel Hogan,” but that ain’t exactly my style, or schtick.

I was blown away with Eli Broad’s candor. Bravo. MOCA curator Paul Schimmel was on him like stink on shit after the speech. Guess we know who’s buttering Paul’s biscuits.